"I believe the decision was like planting a bunch of seeds, and we're just starting to see the shoots popping out of the ground," said Roger Evans, who is in charge of litigation for Planned Parenthood of America.

A man has the right to choose... his metaphors.

***

The linked article, by WaPo's Robert Barnes, goes on at length about the conservative/liberal balance on the Supreme Court, the importance of Justice O'Connor's retirement, and the things Justice Kennedy wrote in Gonzales v. Carhart. (Kennedy would in all likelihood cast the deciding vote if there were a 5-4 case on the subject of abortion in the with the current array of Supreme Court Justices.)

Kennedy's [opinion for the majority in Carhart] was shot through with references to government's interest in protecting the unborn and in making sure women knew the consequences of their actions.

But Kennedy made it clear that the pregnant woman gets to make the final call about whether to abort a pre-viability fetus. A ban on abortions after 20 weeks is plainly inconsistent with that. In Carhart, there was absolutely no question that woman got to exercise her choice to end the pregnancy. The issue was only about whether one way of removing the fetus could be banned (when another method remained available).

The Supreme Court purposefully refused to balance the right of the father or the child when declaring the mother's right to murder the child.

Perhaps this will finally lead to getting the court to take responsibility for balancing those rights.

If I recall, Casey only allowed abortion to the point of viability. Medical technology certainly has pushed viability to the 20 week point. Since the court declared that a 19 year period had established an inviolable precedent since Roe, then the law already forbids abortions to the point where the fetus can be viable, and 20 weeks is easily within that window.

The earlier period of viability and the absence of any stigma for unwed motherhood, and the easy availability of birth control would seem to work against a completely unfettered right to "privacy" when holding women responsible for getting pregnant.

The issue of pain and suffering as well as sanitation if a tactic used to try and eliminate capital punishment. (I found the sanitation argument odd since the life expectancy is so short.) Of course burning from an IV injection and possible infiltration is OK for therapy but unacceptable for punishment. If pain and suffering is a consideration for a convicted felon, should not it be a concern for an organism with nervous system? BTW, it used to be taught that neonates don’t feel pain. I though this was concept was stupid. Feeling pain and remembering pain are two different things.

"But Kennedy made it clear that the pregnant woman gets to make the final call about whether to abort a pre-viability fetus."

"Clear" isn't a word that leaps to mind in describing whatever principles are supposedly in play, and it is especially misplaced if the point is to devine how Kennedy might re-balance those principles in the next go-around. Constitutional decisionmaking isn't supposed to turn on whatever might be tugging Kennedy this way or that. But that's what happens when the decisionmaking has no anchor.

This latest round in the abortion wars has the makings of a good sports-watching-cum-bookie experience (it's had them for close to 40 years), but it's a strange way to run a country. And it's proven to be a total failure as a way to establish a stable national policy -- always just one vote (with Kennedy, half a vote?) away for a complete reversal.

In Carhart, the there was absolutely no question that woman got to exercise her choice to end the pregnancy.

Why "got to exercise her choice to end the pregnancy" rather than "got to end the pregnancy"? All rights involve choosing to do or not to do something. There's something strange about applying the language of "choice" exclusively to this right.

I love the euphemistic way that we cover the killing of a separate individual "one way of removing the fetus"-- as if the fetus were an organ that we were removing, and not the end of a life.

When you start talking about the baby feeling pain, you lose some of your moral ground defining it as less than human, and from there you will find that it's more difficult to justify why killing the individual 20 weeks before birth is different than 20 weeks after.

Kennedy made it clear that the pregnant woman gets to make the final call about whether to abort a pre-viability fetus. A ban on abortions after 20 weeks is plainly inconsistent with that.

The problem with the viability standard is that it is mush. It's not a standard at all. Can any baby survive in Dr. Carhart's care? Does he have an incubator in his clinic? Does he have bottles of milk? Is he actually trying to keep that baby alive?

What Nebraska is attempting to do is actually keep viable infants alive. Their 20-week rule--and states have attempted this before--is at attempt to outlaw the most appalling abortions, the ones that are most clearly homicidal.

The preemie record at survival is 21 weeks. What is so unconstitutional about trying to make sure doctors aren't butchering a baby who could possibly survive in an incubator? And how do you know, really know, if she would survive if you don't make the attempt to keep her alive?

Is it good medical ethics to assume your patient would not survive, so you might as well kill her?

Why not induce labor, deliver the baby, and put her in an incubator? Your pregnancy is terminated. That's what you want, right?